Last school year, students may remember taking the 5Essentials Survey, a statewide survey aimed at improving schools. North recently received the results from the survey, which included some areas of concern for the administration.

“The survey came back and in the area of Student-Teach Trust, North scored a 32 out of 100 and schools of the same demographics scored a 60,” said Art Stafford, Assistant Principal of Student Services.

Plainfield North not only ranked low on a statewide scale, but also ranked comparatively low to other District 202 schools. Plainfield East ranked the highest with a 55, followed by South, then Central, scoring a 49 and 41 respectively.

However, all surveys can be questioned for their statistical validity.

“When you give a survey people lie. When you give a survey people exaggerate,” said Stafford.

In a survey like the 5Essentials it is easy to blame such low numbers on students who just did not take the survey seriously.

“No, I did not take the survey seriously, [I think] it was a pointless survey for our community because it’s a safe environment,” said Aaron Dykema, senior.

If schools the same size as Plainfield North had scored a 35, there would be no issue but the fact that schools of the same demographic scored a 60 and we scored a 33 with the the same survey questions, it was worth it to look into, according to Stafford.

In the wake of these findings Student Services and Stafford created the Student Services Advisory Council.

“It was mainly created to figure out what the issue was and why we were half the score of schools comparable to us,” said Stafford.

The group is currently comprised of 40 seniors. Names were taken from Principal Ray Epperson’s student advisory group, counselor recommendations, and a few English teachers.

“[I think] the goal of the group is to bring to light the positive and negative things happening at north and try and fix the issues so future classes can have a better high school experience,” said Emily Domabyl, senior.

Second semester Stafford hopes to expand the group to more students in hopes of getting more input.

“It is a collection of seniors since they have been here the longest and I felt they would speak as thoroughly as anyone could speak,” said Stafford.

In the first meeting students were broken into smaller groups and asked to make a primarily closed ended survey that will eventually be taken into study halls of all grade levels to get more feedback.

“We realize that they have already taken two surveys, the 5Essentials and the student services, but this survey is more narrowed to questions about how students didn’t feel teachers respect me, my opinions aren’t heard,” said Stafford.

Students can expect to see these surveys in their study halls across all grade levels.

“Sometimes the perception is this is a student group that’s out to target specific individual teachers, which that is totally in some people’s minds right now,” said Stafford, “this is overall for Student Services to help teachers be more relatable to students and then how can we help students figure out how to troubleshoot and navigate through any sort of bumps in the road they might have with their teachers.”

The survey showed students across all grade levels have issues sometimes asking teachers for additional help, or going to teachers when they disagree with a grade.

“This helps to give us really good group guidance topics to go in and start talking to freshmen about how to go and talk to your teacher, here’s how you approach it. If you don’t feel comfortable face-to-face type out an email then follow up with a conversation,” said Stafford.

The survey helps to show that students need to meet in the middle with teachers.

“There is one student I give a lot of credit to that said ‘I think this is as much a student issue than it is a teacher issue because I feel sometimes we fell like we are entitled, that we can do whatever we want,’” said Stafford.

Stafford has also implemented a staff portion to the council. It is currently a collection of 9 staff members from North, with hopes of expanding. They will mainly be focusing on the staff aspect with the students focusing on students.